1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a facsimile apparatus which has a multi-address transmission function in different communication modes. For example, the invention relates to a facsimile apparatus which is capable of performing transmission while switching as necessary between a peer-to-peer multi-address transmission with a public telephone network and a multi-address transmission with the Internet.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, facsimile apparatuses have become widespread, and not only the frequency of domestic facsimile communication but also the frequency of overseas facsimile communication has become high. However, in the case of establishing long-distance communication with, for example, an overseas destination by facsimile communication through the use of a public telephone network, there is a problem that communication costs get enormously high. Therefore, an Internet-ready facsimile apparatus which performs, in addition to facsimile communication via a public telephone network, facsimile communication by connecting to the Internet has been developed. The Internet-ready facsimile apparatus eliminates the need for communication costs other than fixed costs, and enables large reduction of communication costs in long-distance communication such as overseas communication.
In the case of using this Internet-ready facsimile apparatus, image data of a document to be transmitted is attached to a mail address of a destination and transmitted in the form of an electronic mail to a mail server on the Internet. A facsimile apparatus of the destination periodically checks the mail server to receive data and expands the data to printing data to print it out.
Further, this Internet-ready facsimile apparatus is capable of multi-address transmission of one image data in both the facsimile mode and the electronic mail mode. Up to this time, as shown in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication JP-A 10-42068 (1998) and Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication JP-A 11-55486 (1999), in the case of multi-address transmission of one image data to destinations in both the facsimile mode and the electronic mail mode, every time when a destination is inputted by abbreviated dialing or the like, the facsimile apparatus judges whether the destination is ready for the facsimile mode with a public telephone network or ready for the electronic mail mode via the Internet, and sequentially performs transmission of the image data based on the results of judgement.
In the case of multi-address transmission of one image data in both the facsimile mode and the electronic mail mode, however, there is a problem as follows. In the case of, every time when one destination is inputted, judging the ready mode of the destination and sequentially performing transmission as in the above conventional method, communication cannot be established with efficiency. Due to characteristics of communication modes, data can be transmitted at a higher speed in the electronic mail mode than in the facsimile mode. However, in the case of, every time when one destination is inputted, judging the ready mode of the destination and transmitting image data in the facsimile mode or the electronic mail mode as in the conventional method, communication in the facsimile mode with a relatively long transmission time and communication in the electronic mail mode with a relatively short transmission time are performed at random. As a result, such an inconvenience occurs that an electronic mail to be instantly transmitted reaches a destination very late, and efficiency of communication decreases as a whole. Particularly, in the electronic mail mode, it is possible to transmit to a plurality of destinations at a time in one mail transmission process. However, in the case of transmitting to the destinations separately, it is necessary to perform a transmission process for each, and therefore it is quite inefficient. Moreover, even when all destinations are of electronic mail mode or all destinations are of facsimile mode, it is necessary to change a conversion mode for every destination in the case where the types of image data compression methods, file formats or the like are different. In this case, when resetting is needed prior to each conversion, resetting is performed again and again before image data is transmitted to all the destinations. As a result, a time for control gets longer and communication efficiency decreases as a whole.